Taking Stock Fifty Years After Freidan's "Feminine Mystique"

Both fathers and mothers pay dearly for the miracle of parenthood, but in most cases, it’s women who pony up for the bulk of those costs, even 50 years after Betty Friedan lambasted what she titled The Feminine Mystique. I often think of a Census Bureau report released last year on who provides care for our children. Suzanne Bianchi, who clocked in 16 years as a Census demographer, discovered, stunningly, that mothers actually spend more time caring for a child today than they did in 1965, back when 60 percent of them stayed at home full-time. In her book Changing Rhythms of American Family Life, Bianchi reports that married mothers devote about 13 hours a week to childcare, up from about 10 and a half hours nearly a half century ago. Additionally, she writes, women still do twice as much housework as men.

The parental breakdown of cleaning, cooking, bathing, playing, disciplining, story-reading, and so on is an exceptionally well-studied area. Surveys have circulated in just about every demographic, statistics gathered and analyzed, papers presented. And yet the results are remarkably even. One study finds that fathers provide 28 percent of active care. Another declares that mothers provide more than two-thirds of care for kids under 12. A third asserts that when both parents work 52 hours a week, women commit an additional 33 hours a week to “nonmarket” work; men get it up for only 20 hours of dishwashing and homework-supervising. That’s just in the U.S., which doesn’t even break into the top thirty in a study that ranked 134 countries by gender parity. It’s worse in France where women do 89 percent of housework and child care (who has time to get fat on a treadmill like that?). Not a single survey contradicts the finding that when women increase their work hours they never decrease the time they spend caring for and cleaning up after their kids. “They seem to do more housework, as if to compensate for their departure from traditional gender norms,” writes economist Nancy Folbre. No wonder Mikko Myrskylä, in his 2011 Max Planck paper on global happiness and fertility, found that “women experience greater stress and stronger negative shocks in well-being” then men after becoming parents.

Recent U.S. studies show that men are doing more, at least—a third more than they did in 1965—but that doesn’t mean it’s making life easier for women. Things are just harder for everyone now. When the Families and Work Institute asked about 1,300 men if they were having a hard time juggling it all, 60 percent of men said they were struggling with the demands of work and family. The ever-deepening “work-life” conflict, is a major factor explaining why nearly every country in the western world reports declining levels of happiness—among both men and women. “No one wants to acknowledge the tradeoff, but there’s always an argument about who does what, and there’s always the potential for more argument in this crazy division of parenting roles.” Folbre says. No wonder when Daniel Kahneman asked 900 working women to assess their daily experiences one of the only things they said they enjoyed less than minding their kids was cleaning up after them. Science magazine may have made headlines when it reported his findings in 2004, but the misery of such drudgery is as old as dirt itself. As Simone de Beauvoir bemoaned in The Second Sex, “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean become soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.”

In my own household, my husband Justin happily shoulders equal, or more, of the burden. This amazes friends. They ask me how I managed to get him with the program, as though it was a question of whipping a rogue horse into shape. My answer is simple: if you want equal parenting, have a kid with someone who wants it even more than you do. They laugh and treat my statement as a hyperbolic quip. The fact is, I couldn’t be more serious. Also, the truth is, it’s easier with one. I’ve been thinking a lot about a terrific interview my friend Joanna Smith Rakoff did recently about balancing motherhood, work, and an inner life. ”When we had just one child, we found ways to make things relatively equitable,” she said “but with two, some sort of dam burst, and I sometimes feel like my life is a page ripped from The Feminine Mystique.”

Her argument was not that society asked too much of women, but that "society asks so little of women". She chastised them for being parasitic child-like weaklings, who needed to stand on their own two feet without "preference or privilege" and achieve in the public sphere, rather than be the bored idle sex-doll housewife who had nothing to do but file her nails while reading the sort of magazine she wrote for.

The Slaughtered Saints feminism you emphasize came along later, and is actually part of the feminine mystique she was railing against. Hence her falling out with the mainstream of second wave feminism.

Agree with Martian. She never pushed for choice. She pretty much said that if you were a stay at home mother and didn't want more you were a loser. Look how things have turned out. I cant say for the better. I think couples should just make up their own minds on whats best for their families. Now that there are choices, I think thats what many of them do anyway.

Laura said that working more doesn't lead to less time with the kids? How can that logically be? There are only so many hours in a day. More time at work logically translates to LESS time with all loved ones, including children.

No, one cannot "have it all." We need to decide what we want out of life, break down our needs and our abilities and work at it so we feel the same way 20 years later. You can't go back and "re-parent" a child you allowed strangers to raise while you were busy doing "more important things" with your time when those children were small. Nor can you start having children in your late 40s or 50s, realizing what you missed by spending your time on more work and more work and more work. (We all know what "all work" makes Jack, don't we?)

Second Wave Feminism got it wrong. I don't know who counts how many minutes parents "spend" with their children, but working with children (part time and not constantly) and raising my own children myself has taught me that simply BEING THERE, even if we're not spending "quality time" with our children is important and necessary.

If your small child needs you at 10:00 AM, that need is not going to be able to be put on ice until 6:00 PM or the weekend or whenever you "get around to it." In days past (and for many of us, today!) being WITH our children ensures that those moments they need us are not put on the back burner nor are they lost forever.

No one can go back in time and deal with something the way it SHOULD have been dealt with when it happened.

You can't schedule "times of need" with your children." They simply happen.. and if you aren't there... both you and your child lose.

This whole "Don't feel bad if you acted selfishly" thing hurts parents and children. One cannot adequately parent and be selfish at the same time. We now have choices on whether to parents or not, if "work" is all encompassing, then one has hard, and often uncomfortable choices to make.

I would like to know in which alternate universe does spending more time at work generate more hours in the day that a mother can spend with her child? What a great alternate universe that must be!

My own personal opinion is that if a woman decides to have a child, then she is deciding to make that child's need for mothering: personal, nurturing attention, the priority in her life for a time. Children are not goldfish or cats. Passing a infant or preschooler around to various caregivers makes children insecure; it prevents the child from developing that special, secure bond of trust with their mother that is the foundation for happy, successful relationships in adult life.

For the first four years of life, a child needs the stable, secure, predictable regularity in their little world that can only be found in their mother's care (or in one primary caregiver's care.) By age 4 a child is ready to begin separation and individuation from their mother: they are developmentally ready to love and trust other adults and make peer friends, still securely attached to and trusting that their mother is there for them.

I think that THAT part of the equation to promote the equality of women has been left out.

Yes, of course we women must be equally educated and equally prepared to work or have a career to support ourselves, but hard truth is that when an educated working woman decides to become a mother, then, MOTHERHOOD is her career of choice for a while.

The hard cold truth is that if a woman is highly driven to achieve in her career, or is so poor that she must work in order to survive, then her children are the ones who will pay the price for her choices.

If a woman's need for career success is her priority, then, she should at the very least just hand her child over to the child's grandmother or hire a full-time nanny for the child, so that the child has that one special nurturing, attentive, loving individual there for him or her consistently, every day, which is what a human child needs.

Bio-mom can "visit", but the child NEEDS to have a real "mommy" for those first crucial years of life.

In a country in which single mommies are a cliche, OF COURSE women do more of the childcare. Or do these studies only ever include two parent households? It isn't very reasonable to expect a man who isn't present to take care of the kids.

The Second Wave attack on Motherhood (and children in general) continues, I guess. Quote from the article: "No wonder when Daniel Kahneman asked 900 *working women* to assess their daily experiences one of the only things they said they enjoyed less than minding their kids was cleaning up after them." (Point of Order: ALL women are "working women." Especially those of us who WORKED harder to raise our own children ourselves.)

I'm sorry, but why do those who hate "minding" children HAVE them? We have secure forms of birth control, Morning After drugs, ways to safely terminate pregnancy etc. Why would anyone who hates "minding children" go to the trouble of having them?

How would these children feel if they knew that their parents' most dreaded task in life was taking care of THEM? The sad thing is; most of these children know. 70s hours a week in Day Care doesn't say to a child, "I love being with you."

We have CHOICES, Ladies.

If one thinks about becoming a mother, one must first THINK about that choice and what it entails, THINK about who will partner with her to raise that child, then THINK carefully before discontinuing birth control. Then once a child is accepted into one's life, one must DO the work to raise a happy, well balanced child. And that result takes TIME out of one's precious "free" time, and more time away from what some may think is their "work time."

We have the medicine the technology and the freedom to choose whether to become mothers or not. Why is ANYONE having children they are going to resent "minding?"

My husband and I try hard to be MINDFUL parents. We intentionally had children, I knew he loved me, was a good person AND a good provider (yep, I knew I would take the bulk of the child care, although he does much of it, and I accepted this reality BEFORE we ever discontinued birth control. Choosing a good provider is NOT an antiquated way of choosing a partner, it's a smart one.) Not just being a Mindful Parent, but enjoying the parenting experience is necessary. Yes, of course it isn't all fun. Kids get sick, they make noise, they make messes... but anyone who went ahead and had kids without REALIZING that all these things were not part of the parenting experience simply wasn't using their brains.

It's the resentful attitude towards motherhood and children in general which has caused younger women to basically reject the "Feminist" label. Although two of my daughters are in their 20s and seem to understand fairness and can spot prejudice against women and others, neither of them EVER will admit to the "Feminist" label, mainly because (although both are childless) they saw how Second Wave treated mothers like theirs (me) who CHOSE the harder path to actually raise the children WE chose to give birth to and didn't resent that choice or those children.

I used to call myself a "Feminist." But, at the risk of having to abandon my children, and do "something better with my time" when they needed me the most, I stopped using the label. I cancelled my MS subscription (and I was a charter member in the Second Founding) and abandoned the "Feminist" brand... mainly because my sisters who wanted to keep the label resented MY choices and even if they themselves had children, they refused daily responsibilities for them and resenting any other woman who embraced raising her own children as a threat.

If Feminism wants to appeal to both women under 35 and to those women who enjoy parenting, they will have to STOP the attack on and resentment towards children and the attack on Mindful Parenting and mothering in general. As it is, they have lost me, other women like me and most of our daughters, who SAW us enjoying parenting and refused to believe the mistruths about resentment and "drudgery" in parenting.

The rhetoric has grown SO stale and simply doesn't apply. Younger women aren't joining up, and they won't as long as their mother's choices to raise them and enjoy it are under continual attack.

Feminism continues to render American women unmarriageable, both through it's disdain for anything domestic and through its relentless lobbying for bigoted laws and procedures in family court.

Today we have SlutWalks and hookup culture on the one hand and lame sexists like Hanna Rosin, et al. celebrating the "end of men" and decrying men's refusal to "man up", propose, etc. on the other.

When it's all over we'll see American female happiness continue to decline, and bachelorhood continue to become the new choice of freedom for the constantly put down American male, much to the horror of women in this country.

These emancipated men simply refuse to be the legal and financial slaves of sexist, narcissistic women, despite feminist pseudoscience on marriage to the contrary.

"If a young man gets married, starts a family, and spends the rest of his life working at a soul-destroying job, he is held up as an example of virtue and responsibility. The other type of man, living only for himself, working only for himself, doing first one thing and then another simply because he enjoys it and because he has to keep only himself, sleeping where and when he wants, and facing woman when he meets her, on equal terms and not as one of a million slaves, is rejected by society. The free, unshackled man has no place in its midst."

Many studies have shown that we are not good multi taskers we either do one thing very poorly and another well or we do two or more things half assed. I think thats what many parents have been doing the last 50 years. A half assed job at parenting. Nobody likes to be told that they should not have children, so until we are willing to tell the truth, any discussion about parenting will be bs.

I had to make that exact choice, only I realized it in my early 20s, before I had time to do damage to my career and my children.

It struck me, as I was applying to Medical School, and planning on marriage and children that it was going to be impossible for me to be a good mother AND a good physician. Maybe some can do both at the same time, but I realized my limitations (even before the research on "multi-tasking" shows humans really don't multi-task well at all.) I realized I would be either a good doctor and a crappy mother, (putting my yet-to-be-born children at risk) or a good mother and a crappy doctor (putting my yet-to-materialize patients at risk.)

After my Bachelor's Degree was finished, I gave up a place at a good Med School and realized I'd be a parent now and decide on further schooling later. I relished motherhood (I still do although most of my children are now adults) and found a related, yet possible to do part time medically related career, when my children were in school. And since I have not regretted my decision.

If I had decided on Medicine, I realized I should not have had children, in order to give my career my full attention. I'm sure some can do both, but I know myself and I couldn't. I know how I need to throw myself into my chosen work (like most people, I don't "multi-task" well) and do ONE thing well. For many years it was mothering, now as they get older and more independent, I use my continuing education and MS degree to work in a related field to help other mothers parent well and feed their children well.

From the research, we now know (as the poster above me noticed) most people don't multi-task well (despite magazine articles and "Oprah" episodes which tell us untrue and impossible things about the wonders of doing 100 things at once perfectly) and, as I said before, HARD choices have to be made.

No. We cannot have it all. Not as men, not as women. There are only so many hours in a day, and so many of those hours require FULL TIME mothering for healthy well adjusted children to result, I'm glad I realized this before a disaster happened or I became yet an other resentful, tired, sad mother, with sad, neglected, resentful children, who has wished she hadn't had children at all. (Or, worse, one who never noticed how miserable and abandoned my children were.)

I'm glad I had my children. But, it was a CHOICE made by realizing that something had to give, and my first career choice was that thing.

I'm a better person for making the difficult choices I made and my children seem to be better people for having an always present mother, so that "immediate need time" could be taken care of as it happened when they were developing as young children.

I think waiting until your children were older was a great idea. And sorry about the half assed comment, I mean many parents do ok doing a half assed job, but probably not the best they could :) I think you made a great choice.

Why is this hard to accept? Possibly because, in the 1970s and ’80s, to acknowledge sacrifice could be perceived as downright anti-feminist.
“I wish someone had told me that, yes, you can be an astronaut. But guess what — if you want kids, you’ll probably have better hours and more time with them as a teacher or science professor,” says Dana Gitell, a 36-year-old marketing specialist and Roslindale mother of two. Still, she says, “I can see how it probably seemed wrong to our baby boomer parents to make any reference to what a young girl’s limitations might be.”

That may have been the only way I could have done it. But, when I realize, now, after parenting for nearly 27 years (two grown and one still growing and needing and learning from me and others) that I could have easily missed those years, it scares me.

I could have had a "wife" I guess, but I wouldn't have had the husband I have now (who enjoys his work and takes pride in providing for his family, with a little help from me) as he doesn't have the "mommy gene" in him. Plus, I would have never given up those early years with my children, when they were in arms, at the breast, or running at my feet while I studied, cooked, played, learned and grew myself.

But, you're right. To "have it all" most women would need a "wife." But, then they are still missing those experiences, and some don't even realize it.

I never missed working 40+ hours a day, in a cubicle, while someone else raised my kids. Never. I understand that everyone has a different way of doing things, but there are some Universal Truths... and often Second Wave forgot that children NEED a Mama. And in the blowback those of us who CHOSE motherhood were deemed inferior, stupid, drudges, lazy and unproductive. But, they were wrong. (Honestly, I think we had it the best, but that's only from my POV.)

in discussions of "feminism" (which I've only ever encountered on the internet, incidentally, never in the real world), is that today it seems to be a discussion of how selfish women are, wanting this and wanting that, when originally it was just an issue of equal rights. The ability to vote, to own property, to work outside the home, not because women just wanted everything they saw, but because originally they had NO choices. They couldn't do those things, so if their man left or died, they just starve, rely on charity, or drain their relatives. Equal rights meant women at least had choices, and the responsibility that goes with those choices.

In fact, it's only been recently that a "career" was supposed to be "rewarding". It used to be survival. Looks to me like people are nitpicking the trivial afterthoughts and ignoring what it was really about to begin with. You made the *choice* that mattered to you, which is what everyone should be doing, because they now CAN. The responsibility goes with the choices. We can't have it all, but we can choose the bits that matter most to us.

Our foremothers wanted choices, we have them. Unlike our ancestors, we now have a choice of whether to bring children into our lives or not. With the choice to have children come certain responsibilities.

My main issue comes when people want the kids without the responsibility.

You are right about "wanting to work" being a fairly new thing. My ancestors were poor and wanted to be able to live like the idle rich and not have to slave away all day. I'm also not sure where the "right" to work outside the home oneself half to death became a choice women actually desired as most every-day people have "jobs" and only those who already have money and influence usually have "careers."

People want the right to work when the option is the right to starve. We also want the right to have some choice in the work that we do, but overall, it's going to be a JOB and not a CAREER, and it's going to be for survival and not for "life enrichment".

I didn't become a welder because I thought it was "life enhancing", I did it because it paid better than office work.

As long as the infant/toddler/child has A *primary caregiver*: ONE person with whom the child can closely bond (aka love and trust) who is available 24/7 to give the child the individual attention, loving care, and nurturing that the child needs; that's all that is necessary.

Said primary caregiver doesn't have to be "bio-mom".

If bio-mommy prefers a high-powered career, then her child's most important person can be the hired nanny or au pair, or grandma, or even daddy, whatever, as long as from the child's point of view, he or she has that one special, caring, empathetic someone available to her or him 24/7 for at least the first 4 years of the child's life.

Children who are not able to bond closely with one special, caring adult develop attachment disorders. This can happen when the infant is left physically alone/isolated for most of the day, or if the baby is passed back and forth from "daytime mommy" to "nighttime mommy", of if the toddler develops a close bond with one caregiver over months or years, and is then removed from that caregiver and given to another, in a serial manner, or if the child is unfortunate enough to be in the care of someone who is unable to love the child, who many even actively resent or hate the child and inflict emotional abuse or physical abuse on the child or neglect the child.

So, bio-mom isn't really necessary as long as the child's needs for bonding closely are met by SOMEone who is kind, empathetic, compassionate, who enjoys mothering, is mentally healthy, who genuinely cares about this particular child and is there for the child all the time until the child is about 4 or 5. (aka, a "mother.")

I have to ask, you don't think that the child of a woman with a "high powered career" whose "nanny" or "Grandparent" or husband is with the child all day, bonding, doesn't have the whole "daytime mommy/night time mommy" problem going on? Of course this child does.

My original question wasn't "Why do some women want high powered careers?" (I understand why) but "Why do women who seem to feel the need to work 70+ hours a week even TRY to fit a child into their already busy, full and successful lives?" Ask the friends of my children, whose mothers were only available to them 2 or 3 hours a week, (preplanned time) and then only half there. These kids had "primary caregivers" who were paid, to, but of course, when one hires a day care provider, you have NO way of knowing how long that relationship is going to last. Having worked in child care for years, I can tell you the turnover is tremendously high.

There's simply no way to guarantee that the "primary caregiver" you hire or gain is going to be there 5 years or 2 years or even 6 months after he or she is hired. Childcare pays so poorly and the hours are so grueling that turnover is inevitable. (Not to mention most child care providers eventually think, "All this work? I could be using to raise my own children." And then leave. More turnover. Relatives are even less reliable and subject to even more jealousy from many mothers.

As for baby's father being the "primary caregiver"... if Mama doesn't have time for Baby, when is she going to have time for Daddy? Why do you think the divorce rate is SO high for high income earning women?) Whether one likes it or not, men are able to compartmentalize differently than women. They can more easily (although not always) "turn off" work and BE home for their partners when they are home, at least if recent Neurological studies are any guide.

And if my experience with at least two mothers I worked with is any indication, many parents will fire a "primary caregiver" if it looks like the child is getting "too close" to the said "caregiver." The jealousy factor again. It's spelled the firing of many happy "primary caregivers'" situations with a specific family.

In reality, it's an unworkable solution. Seems good on paper, but I've lived it. I've NEVER seen it work, except for one physician friend of mine who was able to keep the same nanny for 20 years, (with 4 kids) work part time, was incredibly organized and was a woman who only needed about 3 hours of sleep a night. Everybody else wasn't able to make this idea work.

No, It doesn't seem "fair." But, I don't ever remember being promised "a fair life" by anyone who wasn't unbelievably unrealistic. Just because we don't "like" the ways some things are doesn't mean that those things are able to be changed.

Kids need someone, and in the early years, they need that someone full time. For those of us who think realistically, that "someone" works best if it's mom.

Plus, "primary caregivers" who aren't the bio-mom rarely are able to lactate, and in most worlds, THAT makes yet an other difference in bonding, health and happiness for both mom and child in the first few years of a child's life.

I was attempting irony with my post, which I think you got because you asked: " If Biomom can't (take care of her own child) then why bother having children?"

That was my whole point, entirely. Why indeed?

In the movie "Addams' Family Values", Gomez makes that point succinctly: "Ah, Fester," Gomez sighs fondly, "I hope that some day you too will know the joy of having children, and then paying someone else to raise them for you."

But my underneath the irony, my point of view is the same as yours. A human infant needs mothering, and needs to bond with one special adult very closely for the first at least 4 years of life, in order to develop a secure attachment based on trust and love in order to grow to their fullest potential as an adult.

And unless bio-mom is severely mentally ill, or supremely narcissistic, or a tragic drug addict, etc., then bio-mom IS the one best suited for that very, very full-time job.

As for young women who don't claim to be feminists, there's a good reason for that. A lot of the hard work for equal pay, allowing women in certain fields, colleges, etc, against sexual harassment, has been greatly improved. If they knew what it was like back then they'd be horrified. Yes, they have the choice now. To me, most people are feminists by believing in women's rights and they're not if they're being controlling and say women can't do something. It's still about the fight for choices, some are in your face, some not as much: salary issues, jobs, family, and women's health issues IMO.

As for some of the hardcore feminism in the 70s now I think that might've been overkill. Not the equal pay stuff obviously but the "manning up" stuff. It's been difficult at times to pull back from that and to find our own feminity without going all frilly, but admitting we do need men in our lives and can't do it alone. In some cases I've seen guys deal much better with finding their masculine/feminine sides than we have.

As for kids, I always thought I'd make a great secondary parent but women generally aren't allowed that choice (or I've never seen it) so we're not quite there yet. It shouldn't only be about gender but salary differences and expectations still stand in the way.

I'm not so sure being there for kids 24/7 is so great either, I think kids can find pride in seeing their mothers work at least part time, but sometimes it does seem like one big experiment, huh? Whatever works for you is great.

Fly on the Wall. First Wave Feminists made it possible for women to come close to equal pay (we're not there yet, however) be considered for well paying jobs (not just clustered in low paying "women's jobs") not to mention the right to vote (which my grandmother couldn't do when she was a young woman.) Along with other equalities.

I do have to respectfully disagree that children don't need to be with their moms 24/7. In the early years, before "wean age" (commonly somewhere between 3 and 6) children have a need for their mother's presence that is as vital as their need for food. (And in optimal cases, the food is only available when mother is present, at least for the 6 months to a year)

There is a reason why, almost universally, "school" starts at between 4 and 7 years of age, this is when children (some of them) have developed the inner resources to be without their mothers for short periods of time. (A good reason why well planned preschools are only an hour or two a few times a week and why well planned Kindergartens are STILL half day endeavors. Five year olds don't need to learn to read (unless they pick it up at home) in Kindergarten and there is still plenty for children to learn while at Mother's feet in the early years.

That doesn't mean Mom having a lunch with friends or a dinner date with Dad, while Baby has a loving caregiver is harmful. As long as it is infrequent and not many hours. Infants to experience grief if denied their mother for long periods of time (what these "periods of time" are vary according to whom you ask, but some children will show grief reactions after only 3 or 4 hours away from their main caregiver. This is healthy, normal and part of the development process.)

You are right that this IS a huge experiment. Women have always "worked" but until the Industrial Revolution, women did their work for pay with their children at their feet and at their breasts, doing piece work, field work or other work that was, at least in those days, child friendly. (It simply never occurred to most to take children FROM mothers, simply so they could "do their work.") Before the Industrial Revolution and even after (for a longer time in England than in the USA) women could make a choice of the security for herself of "going into service" for a rich family. In most cases, these women rarely married and certainly rarely had children. There work was long and arduous, but many chose this life for the long term security, room and board and fairly good pay.

Children were not "sent out" until women moved their work from home to factories and other locations away from their homes. We also see the rise of children on their own or in very pathetic "day care" situations. See "The Jungle" or virtually anything written by Charles Dickens to read what happened to children with "working mothers" in those days.

We're still experimenting. Studies about "Day Care" usually show a bias, depending on who is doing them. But, most who have chosen the hard road to stay at home in the early years feel the experience was worth the things we may have given up to have it. Many agree that optimal child rearing begins with a full time, loving, empathetic caregiver who is always there, as "Times of Need" can simply not be scheduled.

Thankfully, the mistruths of the concept of "quality time" is fading, as I think we have seen it is far from optimal to schedule a few time blocks with one's children a week, rather than simply BE with them so one is there when Need arises. And in smaller children and infants, those Times of Need are frequent and unable to be predicted.

and I would in some instances argue about the pay issue. Do women REALLY get less pay for the SAME work, or are the numbers finagled to match an agenda? From my own limited experience, I have received either the same or more pay for doing the same work as men. One place I worked paid people according to the job they were on, regardless of gender. The men still made more overall because they took the harder jobs that paid more, and women settled for easier jobs that paid less. White collar work may be different.

You must have confused me with another on the children needing their mothers, though, as I didn't express an opinion on that. I have very little experience with children other than having been one. I agree little kids should have someone there for them. Even if mom is doing chores, she is there if the kid needs her. The old way of doing things, in which women worked (hard!) but it was in the home and not counted, and they had their kids at their feet, was better for child rearing. I also think that "television as babysitter" does a huge disservice to humanity as a whole. Better they were playing with another kid with blocks and such.